I must first point out that no-one knows the detail of the various algorithms used by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft in their search engines - other than the engineers who work on the systems. But that does not stop us from experimenting and coming up with educated guesses on what the ranking factors are. This post lists the current best resources on the internet where you can see educated guesses on what the main ranking factors are.

1 SEOMmoz Experts Opinions

This list provides the opinions of 37 leaders (people) in the SEO field. Its presented nicely with top 10 lists of positive and negative factors. In addition it contains a few graphs and links to the various experts bios.

2 Ranking Factors SEO Checklist

This is a really detailed list of potential ranking factors provided in a table format with notes. Definitely worth a look. It looks like Vaughin has put a ton of work into this.

3 Ranking Factors In 2009

This post contains a brief discussion on what the key ranking factors are in 2009. Do you agree?

4 Ranking The Ranking Factors

In this post Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land looks in some detail at the SEOmoz list of ranking factors and adds an interestign new dimension to the topic - how hard is it to control the various ranking factors?

Ok, you will probably have brain boggle by now holding on to all of these facts, but you have gotta see the Wikipaedia article on the subject. Its good if you are having trouble sleeping:

5 Pagerank Described

and finally a few words from Google

6 Quick Overview Of Pagerank

Are there any better lists and resources out there? If so let me know

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Post from: Web Business Architecture

I went through the long website development and promotion learning curve a long time ago. Yet, I still see so many people taken in by the SEO Snake Oil Salesman’s promise of instant rankings and riches.

So I though I would help anyone new to web business building by listing the three big signs of the Snake Oil SEO Salesman:

1 - We Guarantee You 1st Page Ranking On Google For Your Chosen Keywords.

This is nonsense. No-one outside of Google knows how the Google search engine works. Thus no-one can guarantee you 1st page ranking. The only way that this could be achieved in a short time is by spending a lot of money on PPC advertising. In this case you will be on the first page, but not for free and not through merit.

2 - We Will Submit Your Site To 1000’s Of Directories And Search Engines And Get You Loads Of Links

Of course they will. Absolutely. But its a waste of your time and hard earned cash. Why? Because, the thinking that lots of links is good for your site is false thinking. Its not the quantity that counts in link building its the quality. If you create good quality content then you will attract good quality links.

3 - Our Service Will Ensure Your Site Is Indexed In Google

Sure it will. But you don’t need it. Just open an account with Google Webmasters tools and eventually you will be indexed. Simple. It can days or months, but while you are waiting you can get on with developing your business.

For a much longer list of snake oil salesman signs have a look at this list from Tim Nash, a well respected SEO - longer list of SEO snake oil signs

Hope this helps in your web journey.

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Post from: Web Business Architecture

Permalinks are the permanent URLs to your individual weblog posts, as well as categories and other lists of weblog postings. A permalink is what another weblogger will use to link to your article (or section), or how you might send a link to your story in an e-mail message. The URL to each post should be permanent, and never change -hence permalink.

To change the default permalink structure on your Wordpress blog you need to go to Wordpress dashboard and then Settings ->Permalinks.

There are two good custom permalink options to consider:

1. /post-name/
2. /category/post-name/

So for example:

http://www.myblog.com/my-first-post/, or
http://www.myblog.com/categoryaboutgoodstuff/my-first-post/

The first option is the simplest and gives good results. The second option is also good but is a little more complex. However if you want your category pages to rank well then you should consider the second option.

I prefer the simpler flat blog structure so my recommendation is to go for option 1. To do this you need to select the Custom Structure option and then enter /*postname*/ as in the screenshot below.

Wordpress Permalink Structure

Once you decide on a permalink structure you should stick with it as changing it later can destroy all your hard work building links to your blog.

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Post from: Web Business Architecture

I am sure that everyone reading this post is interested in how to get good links to their blog. Well there is a way to attract links that in my opinion is the best way to get good quality natural links. Its not new, its being around a long time but somehow seems to be missed by a lot of people who buy into some of the hype surrounding SEO and then go off chasing fancy schemes for getting links or, even worse, indulge excessively in social marketing.

I’ve spend years online exploring how best to develop and promote websites and I have found the key ingredient to getting good quality links to my blog and websites is:

by creating good quality unique content that solves peoples problems

There is another name for this - Linkbait!

So What Is Linkbait?

A good definition is:

content created with the specific intention of attracting links to your website or blog

The key is the “content.” In order to attract good natural links you will need to produce high quality content that people will want to link to. This might seem like a lot of work but you don’t have to create all the content yourself.

For example you can produce a list of good resources on a particular topic. All of these resources will already exist you are just making it easy to access them. The key with this approach is to strive to make your resource list the best resource list on the topic you choose. That way people will bookmark and link to it. it really is that easy!

What’s the Google Perspective On Linkbait?

If linkbait is so good you might wonder if it is frowned upon by Google? Well, obviously not. I mean its exactly what the Google robots crave - new good quality content, yum yum. but just to be sure lets see what Google actually have to say on the matter. On his widely read blog Google SEO specilaist Matt Cutts defines linkbait as follows:

On a meta-level, I think of “linkbait” as something interesting enough to catch people’s attention, and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. There are a lot of ways to do that, including putting in sweat-of-the-brow work to generate data or insights, or it can be as simple as being creative. You can also say something controversial to generate discussion (this last one gets tired if you overuse it, though). Sometimes even a little bit of work can generate a reason for people to link to you.

You can read his article here: Google’s Matt Cutts On Linkbait. Its well worth a look.

What Are The Main Types Of Linkbait

There are many types of linkbait, but three of the most useful and easiest to produce are:

Resources

Everyone needs good resources to refer to and this type of linkbait is one of the easiest to create. A good example of this is the “Top 10″ type of post that you will see on many blogs.

Vanity

Most people are vain even if they don’t admit it to themselves. I don’t think I am vain but I like the idea of having a book published someday so I guess that must be my vanity at work! Anyway a good example of vanity linkbait is the interview. Identify a few well known bloggers in your niche and ask them for an interview. The chances are that at least one of them will say yes. Once you publish your interview on your site make sure to let them know about it and chance are they will link to it and tell their friends.

Controversy

People love controversy about any subject. If you publish something controversal it may do very well for you. Probably the best example of this the the fake story produced by Linkbait expert Lyndon Antcliff who published a fake story of a 13 year old who steals his dads credit card and goes on a spending spree. This story was taken up by the media and published around the world!

And In Summary

So rathar than spending time chasing exotic link building schemes and countless hours doing social marketing, spend more time creating good quality content that is practical and useful. This will give you more payback in terms of links and ranking than any un-natural scheme you can think of.

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Post from: Web Business Architecture

Its worth having a look at the animoto site to see what you can do with it. 30 second videos are free so it costs nothing to try it out. I bought a 3 month all access pass as I intend to make lots of videos for business and for pleasure. For example I produced a video for the local swimming club which features photos of the swimmers and thats gone down really well.

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Post from: Web Business Architecture